Until I Found You (27 page)

“I’ll be there in five minutes.” Nick picked him up in front of the apartment building but didn’t get out of the driver’s seat. “Me first today. You can drive back.”

Colton shrugged his thin shoulders. “Whatever.”

Still stinging with defeat, Nick headed past Mount Abel and toward the condor launch site, taking the curves with ease, saying nothing, barely listening as Colton yammered about a video game. When Nick grunted for the sixth time, Colton frowned. “You’re in a bad mood, aren’t you?”

“Yeah.”

“Are you mad at your girlfriend?”

Yes, but you’re fifteen and it’s none
of your business.
The book, though, was another matter. He told Colton about the twenty rejections. “I don’t know what to do next. I believe in the story, but it’s just not selling.”

“What’s it about?”

“Christianity . . . choices. The way God changed my life.”

“Oh.”

Nick glanced across the truck. “Is that, ‘Oh, that sounds interesting,’ or ‘Oh, who cares’?”

Colton gave him a superior look, one full of the impatience of a know-it-all kid. “It sounds boring. Can I drive now?”

“Not yet.”
Out
of the mouths of babes.
“So what’s boring about it?”

“Everything.” Colton tossed off another shrug. “You’ve done some cool stuff, but who cares about your life?”

God cares.
But God already knew Nick’s story. God had written it just for Nick. He was fearfully and wonderfully made, knit together in his mother’s womb, born to love God, Kate, and others. The book had helped him to understand just how much God loved him. How many times had he said if the book helped just one person it was worth the effort? If it helped just one lonely man cruising through life, one idiot who’d messed up and hurt others, one hack writer who loved a woman who didn’t know how to love him back?

A simple truth hit Nick between the eyes.
He
was the one person who needed the story. His memoir didn’t need to be published to fulfill its purpose. It had already helped that one person—himself.

Dragging in a lungful of air, he felt the weight of the book lift from his shoulders and float away. The manuscript would always be special to him, like a diary or personal journal, but he was finished with trying to sell it. Smiling a little, he pulled into a turnout and stopped the truck. “Thanks,” he said to Colton.

“For what?”

“Being honest.”

“Whatever.” Colton was clearly bored by talking about the boring book. “If you want to write something good, write about the end of the world. That stuff is crazy.”

Apocalyptic fiction didn’t interest Nick, but maybe someday he’d write a novel, a story about condors, falling in love, and finding faith.

He punched Colton’s arm with his knuckles. “Your turn to drive.”

They switched places and Nick offered instructions for the way home. “Here’s what you need to know about mountain roads.”
And
life.
But he didn’t say that. Colton had to figure it out for himself. “Keep your eye on the road, but don’t be afraid. Brake going into a turn, but accelerate coming out of it.”

Colton used the turn signal, checked for approaching cars, and pulled onto the highway. He was tentative at first, but Nick coached him until he found his groove. The miles sailed by with Nick in the passenger seat. It was a good place to be, he realized, as long as a person trusted the One doing the driving.

L
eona glanced
at the three women
seated at the square table in the Golden West Retirement dining room. It was early April, and this would be one of her last meals with the friends she’d made here. Kate didn’t completely approve, but Leona was going home to Meadows in a week. Her broken ribs were forgotten now, and she could breathe without coughing. Thanks to physical therapy, she could roll her shoulder and raise her arm over her head. Even the stroke symptoms were improved. She still slurred her words, but the doctor gave her the okay for daylight driving, in Meadows only.

“I’m beginning to think sheventy really is the new fifty,” she said to the women at the table.

“That’s because it is.” Viola was a hundred and two, the oldest of the residents and a retired teacher. “Just look at you—you’re a teenager compared to me.”

“Me, too,” Eleanor chimed in. She was eighty-nine.

“And me!” said Hattie, a sprightly eighty-five.

Viola glanced around the table, her expression both amused and conspiratorial. “I can’t speak for the rest of you, but
frankly, I’ve had enough of this crazy world. Just because we can keep a body alive doesn’t mean we should.”

Eleanor touched the brim of the purple hat hiding her bald head. “I’ll take heaven over another round of chemo, that’s for sure.”

Hattie nodded gravely. “I’m forgetting more and more. The Alzheimer’s—” She choked up.

Leona took Hattie’s hand and squeezed. Eleanor patted her shoulder. It was a solemn moment, one typical of the camaraderie at GWR, where oldsters understood one another and cared. Silence settled over the four of them until Viola harrumphed. “Cheer up, ladies! There’s no reason to mope. We all know what GWR really stands for.”

Hattie and Eleanor laughed in a watery way, but Leona didn’t understand. “Tell me.”

Viola’s eyes twinkled. “GWR stands for God’s Waiting Room. We’re a breath away from heaven. How wonderful is that?”

“It’s glorious,” Leona agreed, but she wasn’t ready for eternity. She fit in here, but she had a lot of good years left. She also had to finish the condor journal for Kate, something she’d delayed because the words had refused to come to her. Content to let God determine the timing, she’d set the notebook aside. But now she felt the call in her bones to write the last entry.

When the meal ended, she retreated to her apartment and opened the journal for the last time. It would be her gift to Kate when they returned to Meadows. Pen in hand, she began to write.

Dear Kate,

I’m about to describe the most painful time of my life—a time when I believed God had abandoned me.
The Bible says in Job that He gives and takes away, but how does a mother accept the death of her child—a child she didn’t expect to have, a child so precious she thanked God every single day for the miracle of his birth?

You know the details of your father’s accident—the oil tanker that jackknifed, the cars that piled into it, the explosion. I saw the report on television and instantly worried. I knew Peter’s commute, the timing. When your mother called, panicked because he hadn’t come home, in my heart I knew he was gone.

Alex coped by working too hard. I coped by loving you and planting a ridiculous number of flowers. Do you remember the pansies? I do. I also remember the roses and the thorns. How could God take my son? Yes, I understood the parallel. God had sacrificed His son for all humanity. But where was the good in Peter’s death? I still don’t see it, but I can accept that God’s ways are higher than mine. When I get to heaven, I’ll understand the reason why, or I simply won’t need to ask. That wasn’t the case in the months after the accident. Sadness and rage hardened into a knot of bitterness much like the one that grew when I thought I’d never have a child.

The next six months passed in a fog. Your mother started a new job with long hours, so you stayed with Grandpa Alex and me for the summer. When your grandfather suggested a family vacation, I said yes. We spent two days at Disneyland, another at Knott’s Berry Farm, then drove to San Diego and visited the zoo. When Grandpa Alex roared like the lion, you fed him crackers. He hugged you hard and looked right at me. I could hear his thoughts. “Peter’s here, Lee. He’s alive in this child.”

Instead of sharing that glimmer of faith, I felt the death of my son all over again. Grief is like that, Kate. It hides like a snake in the grass, striking at the most unexpected times. I usually coped with the pain by sobbing, but that day my eyes stayed dry. I wanted to go home that very moment, but your grandfather said no. He had a surprise for us.

The next day we drove north. About an hour outside of San Diego, Alex grinned. “How would you ladies like to see real wild animals?”

“Where?” you asked.

“Just a few miles up the road.”

I had no idea what he had in mind.

You tapped his shoulder from the backseat. “Can we see monkeys?”

“Maybe, but they have something even better.”

“What? Tell me, Grandpa.”

He kept you guessing for two miles, then he looked at me. “I bet Nonnie knows.”

I played along. “Dinosaurs?”

“No, but you’re close. We’re going to see condors.”

Your grandfather explained everything. There were no birds in the wild at that time, but the recovery program was moving forward at the San Diego Wild Animal Park. Birds that once flew free over Meadows now lived in “condor-miniums,” free-flight enclosures that gave them room to fly but not soar. As we approached the site, I saw real excitement in my husband’s eyes. The man in charge of the program took us to a viewing area. While he talked to Alex, I peered into the flight pen and saw a condor perched on a rock, staring at the sky through the netting. I asked about her.

“That’s Aqiwo,” the biologist said. “Her name means
Path in Chumash. She’s one of the last birds we took out of the wild.”

“She looks sad.”

“She hasn’t adjusted well, but we hope that changes,” he explained. “We need every bird we can save.”

“For genetic diversity?” Alex asked.

“Exactly.”

As the men talked, I stared at Aqiwo. Her eyes, shiny and black, blinked with the longing for things she couldn’t have. I knew how she felt. Trapped. Alone. Cut off. Yet she had a profound purpose. Using the latest techniques, scientists would use her DNA to revive a species. She’d be a mother and never know it. Where she saw tragedy, her human captors saw a purpose.

With a great beat of her wings, Aqiwo took flight and soared straight at us until she landed on a stump just ten feet away from me. Her eyes locked with mine, and I saw her broken heart. In that moment, my bitterness dissolved. If the scientists could use this bird for great purposes, surely God had plans for me . . . plans for a future and a hope.

That happened many years ago, and I can truthfully say I’ve been blessed. I had a wonderful marriage to a good man. For twenty-seven years I had the best son a mother could have. Now I have you, Kate. With so few birds left at that time, the condor you saw in the canyon could easily be one of Aqiwo’s descendants.

So what is the point? Simply this. The Bible says, “For now we see through a glass, darkly . . .” We don’t always understand what happens to us or why, but if we could see through the lens of eternity, we’d weep with joy. Faith is what allows us to believe in the beauty behind that dark glass. It’s a gift from God, not something we
can conjure or create. It’s a gift we choose to accept, much like a child opening a box on Christmas morning. I pray you will receive that gift and live your life to the fullest as God intended—with hope, faith, and the courage to love.

Six months ago Kate had arrived in Meadows on a day much like this one. The same sky shimmered above her, though today it was vivid blue instead of cloudy gray. The giant oak tree hadn’t changed, and Mount Abel still rose majestically above the other mountains. The only difference between that October afternoon and this April morning was the vivid green of the trees and grass, and the three hundred daffodils in Leona’s driveway. Winter had served its purpose.

Seated on the deck, she ran her hand over the cover of the journal in her lap. She had read it last night and didn’t know what to think. The facts of the story were familiar, but Leona’s anguish was a new twist. On one hand Kate found the story inspiring; on the other, it scared her to death. Until now, she had viewed her grandmother’s faith as just another part of her personality, the way Kate’s career was part of hers. The journal showed Leona’s faith in a new light: It wasn’t just a piece of her life. God seemed to have real power. Mentally Kate traveled back to her own first glimpse of Wistoyo and the prayer she whispered to Leona’s God.
Are
you real?
Because if you are, I need help.

Kate still needed help. But how did a person trust a God she couldn’t see or hear? What-ifs plagued her. What if she left her career, went broke, and never worked again? What if she married Nick and they fell apart? Kate despised uncertainty. She preferred being in control, something Eve understood and indulged.

Kate felt confident and safe at Eve’s Garden, but deep down, she hadn’t changed at all. She was still afraid of mountain roads, making mistakes, being late, and losing Nick. The
Clarion
had recovered financially, and Nick had graciously written the article for
California Dreaming
, but Kate felt separate from him. Their plans for tonight’s gala were typical. The event was a black-tie preview of the new advertising campaign for EG Enterprises, and Kate was responsible for overseeing it. She would have enjoyed driving back to Los Angeles with Nick, but they were going separately because she needed her own car in case Eve asked her to run a last-minute errand.

“Good morning!” Leona called from the sliding glass door. “Want some company?”

“Sure.” Kate patted the chair next to her.

Leona plopped down and they inhaled in unison. The piney air was thin today, and the earth smelled new. Kate loved moments like this, when nature demanded to be noticed and pulled her into a higher state of mind. She wanted to rejoice, cry, shout, and weep all at once, just like Leona had done in the different seasons of her life. “The journal was amazing. I felt every word of it.”

“I’m glad.”

Kate raised her heels to the edge of the chair and hugged herself. “There’s something I don’t understand.”

“What’s that?”

“I can see God working in your life, but I don’t see Him in the details of mine. I try my best, but it never seems to be enough. I love my job, but Eve can be overwhelming. I started working forty hours a week. Now it’s sixty and I still can’t keep up. Nick is running the
Clarion
without me, and I feel guilty.”

She turned to look Leona in the eye. “I feel guilty about
you, too. I hope Dody moves in, because I don’t like you living alone. What if you fall again? What if—”

“Kate?”

“What?”

“Honey, stop.” Leona reached for her hand. “Even if you’re here, I could have another fall or even a stroke. You can’t control everything that happens.”

Leona’s claim fanned embers that had burned in Kate for a long time, maybe her entire life—certainly from the day her father died. The morning of the accident, he had driven her to school like always, except she forgot her lunch and had to run back to the house to get it. When they arrived at the school, she was slow to get out of the car and he’d been stern with her. If she’d been more obedient that morning, he wouldn’t have been on the freeway when the oil tanker jackknifed.

She knew such thinking was grandiose. There was no real connection between her childish behavior and the accident, but there were things she
could
control—like driving the speed limit and being on time, working hard, and not expecting too much from other people. She did those things and more. So why did she feel like her life was unraveling? She made good, smart choices. She didn’t expect to avoid trouble completely, but surely she could limit the intensity and number of random accidents.

“I know I’m not God,” she said firmly. “But there are things I
can
control.”